Tag: amanda rootsey

60 minutes Channel 9 Australia: If you watched the almost painful interview with Belle Gibson and Tara Brown last night (Sun 28 June 2015), you probably came away shaking your head in disbelief. How could so many have been taken in by Belle’s cancer diagnosis followed by her cancer cure claims for so long.

60 minutes Channel 9 Australia: If you watched the almost painful interview with Belle Gibson and Tara Brown last night (Sun 28 June 2015), you probably came away shaking your head in disbelief. How could so many have been taken in by Belle’s cancer diagnosis followed by her cancer cure claims for so long.

Belle Gibson – Cancer Hoax

Tara Brown certainly had the most challenging of interviewees in Belle Gibson as we watch story afterstory spun by Belle pulled apart and dismantled by Brown only to see each time, justification by Gibson as to why she lied and how she is the victim and not the people she duped. No one likes to witness a public shaming – there is something about it that makes us cringe; but as painful and unpleasant to watch as it was – it was perhaps a necessary story to further shine a questioning light on the burgeoning wellness-cancer cure industry and the entrepreneurs with cancer cure stories that don’t quite add up.

However, for me the visual; seeing Belle’s almost unwavering face when constantly challenged with proof of her lies, was a dangerous indictment of the conviction and surety of today’s self-made cancer cure entrepreneurs. It is a hook that pulls cancer patients into a web of destruction.
Listen to my fascinating interview with Richard Guilliatt re Belle Gibson on Navigating the Cancer Maze Australia

However – the unfortunate truth is that Belle Gibson is not alone as a cancer fraud and one hope I have is that Belle Gibson can leave a message for all of us, not only cancer patients; as to who we take advice from when it comes to a serious illness like cancer. As Tara Brown points out towards the end of the interview; how many people turned away from conventional medicine based on her message?

40 years ago – I played a significant part of the new frontier in cancer medicine. We created the cancer support group movement, taught patients about very basic nutritional changes (basic compared with today) – but more importantly, we helped patients build and re-build their psychological structure after the shock of a cancer diagnosis and the ensuing PTSD. A formula that still helps my patients today. But we have come a long way from those days.

Longevity in the world of cancer is a valuable tool to look back and see the trends and changes. Having experienced a very personal cancer story when my partner was diagnosed with bone cancer in the mid 1970’s (another story entirely- see http://www.smh.com.au/national/health/too-good-to-be-true-20120420-1xcgn.html); I watched aghast in the 1980s and 90’s as a new breed of cancer entrepreneurs were born – many of them had visited our Centre or attended seminars and workshops; books were written and exaggerated claims made. This also became an international trend! Then, cancer became designer, trendy almost sexy and the approaches to treating it in the alternative world became more simple – verging on ridiculous.

The new breed of cancer entrepreneur emerged – young social media entrepreneurs – most who have never worked with cancer patients or studied diet – became instant experts on instagram and Facebook.

One of our institute’s researchers has contacted and examined the stories of many cancer entrepreneurs and yes – like Belle Gibson – not one could corroborate or medically verify their public cancer cure story. Unfortunately – placebo medicine aside – these people, whether well meaning, ignorant , self deceptive or just plain scammers, lead cancer patients down a muddied road in the cancer maze leading to a dead end & a lot of wasted time getting back on track again.

My GP colleague and I, at the Gold Coast conduct a specific practice – “Cancer Alt- Med Rescue” for patients who have been ill-advised & suffering tremendous consequences as a result. We see a lot of rectal obstructions, fungating tumours (tumours that have been active for so long – they ulcerate and break through the skin) and even brain tumours that naturopaths have suggested to patients; can be treated naturally. We see horrendous injuries and amplified pain and suffering and often – horrible deaths.

Every week we see patients who have delayed conventional treatments that have a good track record for cure or buying time; preferring to take a chance with their life with advice from unskilled, fraudulent internet websites or those cancer entrepreneurs I spoke of above.

In recent times we have had some very public stories in the media about the exclusive use of Alternative

Mother and daughter The late Jess and Sharyn Ainscough Holding out for Miracle 2012 The Australian Weekend Magazine – Richard Guiliatt

Medicine in cancer and its consequences – the death of Jess Ainscough – alias ‘Wellness Warrior’ – her mother; the patients of Dr Satori and if you ever want to be convinced to NOT try alt med for bowel cancer – check out the sad and chilling Penny Dingle Story on Australian Story.

But these are the stories that make it to press; there are many thousands that go unnoticed and not reported and that simply go down in the records as a cancer death without investigation. I estimate that cancer deaths due to delayed diagnosis or delayed treatment due to giving alt med a try; or by taking a total alt med approach, is likely to account for at least 30% of cancer deaths in Australia. That is a huge figure – but I am in a unique position to see these patients – often in the clusters of areas such as Cairns-Atherton, Sunshine Coast, Byron Shire, to name but a few; areas where alternative medicine populations are dense.

But – it is not only mortality – morbidity caused by delayed treatment that can grossly impact well-being and life quality. Over the past few weeks I have had several clients who almost certainly would have had tumour eradicating surgery and a temporary colostomy – but due to delaying by months or, in some cases years of naturopathy, Dr Google and or integrative medicine; their pain and suffering is far amplified and the prognosis poor. The same can be said of head and neck tumours where early surgical intervention could have saved disfigurement and reduced damage from radiation therapy in 3 recent patients.

Keep your Fraud-o-meter active and Alert!

In summary – Belle Gibson brings a significant and timely reminder for you to question the quality, reality and authenticity of your cancer advice. Too many patients are dying prematurely due to believing in a “natural therapies” idealogy towards treating and curing cancer.

As a comedian once said – “a grizzly bear is natural – but would you stand in front of it believing it would heal you?”

Please spread the word and help others to question and think critically about the source of cancer advice. People’s lives – maybe your life depends on it!

If you had told me 30-40 years ago I would be spending most of my working life shepherding cancer patients back into mainstream medicine; I would have thought it a ludicrous idea. But – this is what I do. The movement that I was a part of from the 1970’s forward was inclusive of conventional medicine. It was about improving lifestyle, good nutrition, stress reduction and how to develop strategies that work whilst you had mainstream medical treatments. The work then was a value add to to the best conventional medicine available.

Part Two: In this Easter edition of The Australian Weekend Magazine, (available online by subscription or in the Magazine) Richard Guilliatt in his article Wellness Inc. takes us on a journey of reality into the current day wellness industry. You can also try the following link to read this story.

The Wellness Industry is laced with promises and certainty; New Age philosophies and platitudes. Which sounds lovely, but it is not a replacement for conventional medicine. Many young cancer entrepreneurs are following the premise popularized in the last decades–that the mind can change everything. Try focusing on a mole on your body for a day , week month or year and see what influence the mind can have? Let me know if it goes away because you asked it to! You can change anything with your mind is a dangerous premise that has winded its way in the wellness movement. I have had patients who have believed implicitly in the power of the Course in Miracles and studied it intensely as the only treatment for breast cancer. Unfortunately like most patients who neglect medical treatment, they died due to painful, fungating tumours.

Then, there are young women who have had cancer and who claim to have had cancer. One such newsworthy young woman Belle Gibson; who claimed to have had many cancers, when exposed now says she was misdiagnosed. In a strange way Belle has helped to lift the lid on the wellness industry that she desperately wanted to be a part of and is responsible for breaking the bubble of deception that cloaks the wellness movement. All is not as it seems. The Wellness Industry is ill and for our physical and psychological wellbeing – we need to take a long hard look at the remedies.

If you had told me 30-40 years ago I would be spending most of my working life shepherding cancer patients back into mainstream medicine; I would have thought it a ludicrous idea. But – this is what I do. The movement that I was a part of from the 1970’s forward was inclusive of conventional medicine. It was about improving lifestyle, good nutrition, stress reduction and how to develop strategies that work whilst you had mainstream medical treatments. The work then was a value add to to the best conventional medicine available.

Over the years the concept changed; influenced by idealism – not fact. Cancer patients were becoming vegan, raw vegan and juicing and green smoothies became fashionable, positive thinking, meditation, colonics and enemas were all geared at effecting the perfect remission from cancer as well as promises of “awesome wellness”. Just when you think you have heard it all – “people are going bananas – literally!

Yes – you read correctly, people have started eating just one fruit, the return of the mono diet eg Freelee the Banana Girl http://abc.net.au/news/6360232and then the banana runner who claims her diet and lifestyle influenced her cancer : Her book “Raw Can Cure Cancer” is a claim that must be substantiated along with her reported cancer-related medical history. If you feel tempted to try any of the whacky fad internet/book diets – Please take a look at the following site first – testimonials from folk who tried the whacky diets with dire consequences: http://www.beyondveg.com/

Back to Richard Guilliatt’s article where he talks of young “life” coaches, meditation teachers and health and wellness bloggers within the Wellness mix. A harmless business? Far from it.

Keep your Fraud-o-meter active and Alert!

There are many more out there that would fit the bill for inclusion into Guilliatt’s news piece and no doubt there will be more revelations to come. Far from harmless; these sweet faced ill informed young women I’m sure, or at least I hope, have no idea of the influence and impact they are having on the lives of cancer patients. Their blogs tell similar stories; their cancer cure lifestyle changes sound so easy, so right and so non toxic; after all how can vitamins, attitudinal healing or a green smoothie harm anyone?

We live in times when anyone can make themselves famous without having earned their stripes, studied or even had a life long enough to be qualified to advise people what they should do with their lives.

If you are following or encouraging someone else to follow their unqualified information and lifestyle advice you will likely exacerbate illness. Their influence may even contribute to your death or the death of a loved one. If this occurs – will the blogger or author take responsibility for their poor advice? If this were your wife or husband or child or sibling – how would you feel? Cancer is complex. Conventional medicine doesn’t have all the answers either – but early diagnosis and early treatment by conventional medicine clearly leads to life extension across many cancers. This I know having seen tens of thousands of cancer patients in my 40 year career who recovered from cancer following the middle-path approach. Holistic medicine in order to be ‘whole’ must be inclusive of Conventional Medicine.

We are now seeing hundreds of Wellness “Cancer-cure” bloggers who can appear to have knowledge merely because they have had or still have cancer. Walking experiments themselves, they advise with surety gathering followers along the path like in the fairytale – The Pied Piper of Hamelin

Richard Guilliatt poses the question – What do these people have in common – they are young, new age, savvy with the internet and social media and they are a part of dangerous sisterhood peddling unqualified natural living and “cure cancer” philosophies to the online masses.

The message is clear for anyone dealing with cancer – Buyer beware! Be careful from whom you are taking advice. Where cancer is concerned – never compromise on qualified advice.

A more senior element quoted by Gulliatt, an elder of TV fame who has influenced many cancer patients to take the road to healing Cancer with the now illegal Black Salve – Tony Barry is one of those all Australian ‘larger than life’ fellows that has appeared on our TV screens for decades. He promotes the use of black salve and although he continues to have melanomas that he treats with Black salve, he is still singing the praises of it’s success as a cancer cure. The fact that he has had a leg amputated due the advancement of his disease seems to pass by as it was written in to the last TV series screened on ABC TV: The Time of Our Lives. As the character Ray – a car on a wheel jack drops on his leg – and as a part of the show – his leg is damaged and he undergoes an amputation.

As Richard Guilliatt reports, the real story is that a fungating tumour (melanoma) the size of a mandarin, burst through the skin on his leg. Surgeon’s accordingly amputated the leg. At that time in 2013, for 6 years the actor had refused surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Is the melanoma being held at bay by applying Black Salve which apparently he still uses? I don’t know what Tony Barry’s brand of melanoma is – but all cancers are different and by nature – some grow slowly. Superficial spreading melanoma; the most common type can be slow growing.

Superficial spreading melanoma is a form of melanoma in which the malignant cells tend to stay within the tissue of origin, the epidermis, in an ‘in-situ’ phase for a prolonged period (months to decades). At first, superficial spreading melanoma grows horizontally on the skin surface – this is known as the radial growth phase. The lesion presents as a slowly-enlarging flat area of discoloured skin.

An unknown proportion of superficial spreading melanoma become invasive, i.e. the melanoma cells cross the basement membrane of the epidermis and malignant cells enter the dermis. A rapidly-growing nodular melanoma can arise within superficial spreading melanoma and start to proliferate more deeply within the skin. SOURCE: http://www.dermnetnz.org/lesions/ssm.html

Like Jess Ainscough (Wellness Warrior) whose slow growing epitheloid sarcoma progressed at the expected rate – so too melanoma’s follow a similar pattern. I have been to too many “Black Salve” funerals – including naturopathic practitioners, naturopathic teachers and integrative doctors who succumbed to its undelivered promises.

I have always liked Tony Barry as an actor. People with such a public persona have a big influence on society. His position as narrator in the DVD One answer to Cancer has influenced perhaps millions of people to use Black salve on cancers. Some may be benign whilst others have the potential to spread into the lower layers of skin and through the lymphatics. In the public interest questions must be asked about the efficacy of this treatment (developed would you believe out out an early Medical technique – Moh’s chemosurgery!!)

It was disappointing and to me rather obnoxious; that when questioned about Black salve Tony Barry’s response was that his survival shows that the “cancer industry” doesn’t have all the answers. “People need to take control of their lives” he says “Because if you put it in the hands of these buggers ( meaning the medical profession); their model isn’t based on wellness – it’s based on sickness.”

With regard to Tony Barry, Jess Ainscough and others – If people wish to experiment on themselves – well it is their right even if misinformed. But when they peddle their “cures’ to the masses while still a walking experiment themselves – that I have a problem.

When the surgeon who amputated Tony Barry’s leg below the knee read the Weekend Australian Magazine, he must have sat down shaking his head in disgust! Another doctor whom I know who featured in the DVD One Answer to Cancer lost his life to a brain tumour refusing conventional treatment with a belief that natural medicine would cure him. One answer to cancer doesn’t seem to have the answers to cancer.

So – where are we at as cancer myth after cancer myth is dismantled and shattered. As Phillip Adams points out in his interview with the Australian newspaper’s Richard Guilliatt last Thursday night on Radio National “Late night Live”; the Wellness industry is well overdue for a makeover. Watch for Richard Guilliatt’s article in today’s weekend Australian newspaper magazine….” Wellness Inc”.

Part ONE: At the beginning of the wellness industry birthed during the 1970’s, one could not have foreseen the journey that lay ahead. Born during the freedom movement alongside the emerging hippie culture; the wellness movement had all the potentials to supersede the medical culture of the time that appeared to be struggling in one particular area – cancer treatment. At that time chemotherapy was crude as was radiation and surgery when compared to today’s medicine.

Me on my wedding day February 1976 when Ian Gawler was given a 6 week prognosis after Gerson diet and intensive meditation failed to impact his illness. TB or Cancer?

Diagnostic equipment was also basic; in particular those affected by cancer were looking for a new way forward. Others who had no apparent mainstream medical treatment options during the 1970’s, were willing to try whatever might help. As mentioned by Richard Guilliatt in his interview with Phillip Adams; the history of Ian Gawler’s disease and highly likely misdiagnosis of secondary cancer, has been crucial to the birthing of the Wellness Movement both in the 70’s and today in 2015.

As we know, history and details often become confused as time goes by. At the end of 1975 Ian Gawler and myself were in a situation where there was no treatment on offer for him. Having had his left leg amputated a year prior in Jan 1974; what was thought to be development of a secondary cancer in November 1975; was not thoroughly investigated. If the new bony lump in his groin was a metastasis of the original osteogenic sarcoma then according to his doctors, medical treatment was futile apart from some radiation therapy. The path and behaviour of this bony lump and other lumps that were to follow; with retrospective knowledge; were atypical of metastatic osteogenic sarcoma. The mere fact of his recovery should have demanded rigorous investigation and research when his “remission” was declared – but it did not! The story grew and morphed and has even been misreported in credible medical Journals.

The story of the man who cured himself of metastatic osteogenic sarcoma became famous worldwide – the story was largely anecdotal, complex and difficult to track over the years – this is how myth and folklore is born and how others are influenced to follow.

Here is what happened on The Gerson Diet & intensive meditation 1975-76:

After 3 months on the Gerson Therapy concurrent with intensive meditation sessions with the late Ainslie Meares; there was massive deterioration in Ian’s condition.

The Gerson Diet caused massive weight loss aided by horrendous night sweats and then immobility due to pain from nerve compression in the spinal column (caused by the rapid weight loss). Clearly, two of the mainstays diet and meditationthat have been promoted as pivotal in “curing” Ian’s cancer; failed at the critical time when a solution was needed the most! Yet somehow, the new breed of young 2015 Cancer Warriors and social media/internet entrepreneurs were under a misapprehension regarding the actual events of Ian Gawler’s recovery that took place between November 1975 and June 1978. Many have since built both lucrative businesses whilst jeopardizing their lives – based on incorrect information. The late Jess Aincough (Wellness Warrior) was quoted as saying at the Gawler Foundation’s Survivors Conference “If Ian Gawler did it – then I can do it too”. DOWNLOADJESS ainscough Gawler healthtalks

Gerson’s therapy appeared to have some scientific Basis – however in later years I read some of the early Gerson Material – A summary is included here: The claims for Cure being quite different that what is commonly thought of Max Gerson’s Diet and Research: pdf link included below

So – where are we at as cancer myth after cancer myth is dismantled and shattered. As Phillip Adams points out in his interview with the Australian newspaper’s Richard Guilliatt last Thursday night on Radio National “Late night Live”; the Wellness industry is well overdue for a makeover. Watch for Richard Guilliatt’s article in today’s weekend Australian newspaper magazine….” Wellness Inc”.